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What Happened...Coach changes?

W

Wisker

Recruit
5 Year Member
Been looking at some old youtube videos of games in the past, during the shut-down period. This has led me to ponder:
What happened in 2002? Frank had a decent thing going. Then we go 7-7. I was at the Penn State game in "happy" valley when we got whipped. After that, things seemed to go downhill. What happened? Why the sudden descent? And why the need for the coaching change thereafter? And for Bo...it seems as if things went downhill once we left the Big 12. He had some great years...resurrected the defense. Then, we join a new conference and get smothered in some featured contests. He has his meltdowns. Was it the switch to a new conference that got to him? Was he forced into a situation that he wasn't expecting?

I ask this in part because of the coaching changes we've gone through since Tom. I just feel that we lost all continuity when we got away from the Devaney...Osborne...Solich connection. We're trying to get that back, now. But it's been a lot of years where that connection was disrupted.

Thanks!
 

Mistakes were made. But the landscape changed significantly when Tom retired and nobody was willing to accept it. The only possible cause to many was the coach was a loser. Remember any left handed monkey can coach and win at Nebraska.
 
Wisker said:
Been looking at some old youtube videos of games in the past, during the shut-down period. This has led me to ponder:
What happened in 2002? Frank had a decent thing going. Then we go 7-7. I was at the Penn State game in "happy" valley when we got whipped. After that, things seemed to go downhill. What happened? Why the sudden descent? And why the need for the coaching change thereafter? And for Bo...it seems as if things went downhill once we left the Big 12. He had some great years...resurrected the defense. Then, we join a new conference and get smothered in some featured contests. He has his meltdowns. Was it the switch to a new conference that got to him? Was he forced into a situation that he wasn't expecting?

I ask this in part because of the coaching changes we've gone through since Tom. I just feel that we lost all continuity when we got away from the Devaney...Osborne...Solich connection. We're trying to get that back, now. But it's been a lot of years where that connection was disrupted.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Combination of 1) Old asst. coaches retiring on the job, refusing to recruit, and/or being physically unable to do their jobs. 2) Epply abandoning his oversight of S&C to sell his machines, losing the culture of accountability. 3) Follow the legend and pay the price. Solich was no Osborne, but he was no damn Riley, Callahan, or whatever other loser pieces of garbage were considered, offered, or hired.

There were two reasons to fire Solich in 2003...hubris and stupidity, and we got both.

Without Osborne as a buffer between dillhole Perlman and Bo, there was no possibility of success. The A&M game when HP publicly chastized him over TO’s head was the fuse, Eichorst was the bomb. He was hired for one reason and they purposely undermined Pelini to the point he would either fail, quit, or implode.
 



FeelLikeAStranger said:
Combination of 1) Old asst. coaches retiring on the job, refusing to recruit, and/or being physically unable to do their jobs. 2) Epply abandoning his oversight of S&C to sell his machines, losing the culture of accountability. 3) Follow the legend and pay the price. Solich was no Osborne, but he was no damn Riley, Callahan, or whatever other loser pieces of garbage were considered, offered, or hired.

There were two reasons to fire Solich in 2003...hubris and stupidity, and we got both.

Without Osborne as a buffer between dillhole Perlman and Bo, there was no possibility of success. The A&M game when HP publicly chastized him over TO’s head was the fuse, Eichorst was the bomb. He was hired for one reason and they purposely undermined Pelini to the point he would either fail, quit, or implode.
Click to expand...
In a nutshell,... well done. Wash your hands.
 
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I think the Bill Callahan experiment was really tumultuous, for more reasons that just the sudden swap to the WCO and trying to make Nebraska an "NFL style" team.

If Frank had been given a chance to continue, Pelini winds up staying as his DC. Nebraska still recruits well (maybe not Suh) but manages to put together some monster defenses under Solich and Pelini. We win at least one or two Big XII title games.

The Big XII still falls apart, because Texas 'gon Texas. Osborne and Perlman still lead us to the Big Ten, and Bo's defenses are again exposed. But with Frank as the middleman, we don't get an Eichorst-Pelini explosion and Bo exits on good terms, moving to coach some low-tier P5 program like Vanderbilt instead of freefalling back to FCS.

Frank realizes he's got a few years left and prepares to leave Nebraska with a career just under Osborne and Devaney. We win at least one more national title during his reign and have about 4-5 conference titles between the Big XII and Big Ten. Frank works with Osborne to make an offer to UCF-King Frost as some kind of co-Head Coach or OC-in-Waiting. Frank retires gracefully after a season or two and Frost takes over.

We still run elements of the triple option, haven't burned coaching bridges, and talented guys like Milt Tenopir, Turner Gill, Boyd Epley and Ron Brown have stuck with the program for 20+ years. We hire them all on as "outside consultants" in a Saban-esque move and Frost brings in his new guys.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?
 
FeelLikeAStranger said:
Without Osborne as a buffer between dillhole Perlman and Bo, there was no possibility of success. The A&M game when HP publicly chastized him over TO’s head was the fuse, Eichorst was the bomb. He was hired for one reason and they purposely undermined Pelini to the point he would either fail, quit, or implode.
Click to expand...
Bo wasn’t quitting. He was begging, trying to be fired. He couldn’t wait to be out of here, and I for one still believe, some of those blowouts wouldn’t have been had he not hated it so much here working for those tools. You can’t quit a job with all that guaranteed money out there.
 




Marcus said:
Pelini was a mediocre head coach. The only person who "undermined" Pelini was Pelini himself.
Click to expand...
To date, he’s the best head coach Nebraska has had since Osborne. Had NU stayed in the Big 12, I think they’d have been right there with Oklahoma going forward. Everything changed with the move to the BIG, everything.

Bo’s problem was/is recruiting. I don’t think he likes it much. If you’re the head coach, and recruiting isn’t your thing, then you better have some serious recruiters on your staff. Nebraska didn’t have enough of those guys that could kill it on the recruiting trail.
 
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Husker In Oklahoma said:
To date, he’s the best head coach Nebraska has had since Osborne. Had NU stayed in the Big 12, I think they’d have been right there with Oklahoma going forward. Everything changed with the move to the BIG, everything.

Bo’s problem was/is recruiting. I don’t think he likes it much. If you’re the head coach, and recruiting isn’t your thing, then you better have some serious recruiters on your staff. Nebraska didn’t have enough of those guys that could kill it on the recruiting trail.
Click to expand...

It is easy to say that the move to the Big Ten hurt him, but does anyone think that the last team he fielded his final year would have won the conference if he was still in the B12? One of those situations where, if you really supported him, then he is the victim of the move and would have thrived had it not happened. If you don't support him, then the flaws that always existed were even more exposed by the move.

Seven years should be long enough to show what it can be, but it took Osborne longer than that, right? Pelini's ouster was not about his potential to win conference championships. Whether he was the best coach since Osborne or the worst, the people making the decisions did not spell fired with Ws or Ls.
 
Kwajsker said:
It is easy to say that the move to the Big Ten hurt him, but does anyone think that the last team he fielded his final year would have won the conference if he was still in the B12? One of those situations where, if you really supported him, then he is the victim of the move and would have thrived had it not happened. If you don't support him, then the flaws that always existed were even more exposed by the move.

Seven years should be long enough to show what it can be, but it took Osborne longer than that, right? Pelini's ouster was not about his potential to win conference championships. Whether he was the best coach since Osborne or the worst, the people making the decisions did not spell fired with Ws or Ls.
Click to expand...
They spelled fired with S T U P I D, twice. Even more stupid were the crap coaches hired to replace those blunders.

The move to the BIG was great for NU, academically, but for football, it’s been awful. I don’t even think that can even be argued. A century of history gone.
 



DuckTownHusker said:
I think the Bill Callahan experiment was really tumultuous, for more reasons that just the sudden swap to the WCO and trying to make Nebraska an "NFL style" team.

If Frank had been given a chance to continue, Pelini winds up staying as his DC. Nebraska still recruits well (maybe not Suh) but manages to put together some monster defenses under Solich and Pelini. We win at least one or two Big XII title games.

The Big XII still falls apart, because Texas 'gon Texas. Osborne and Perlman still lead us to the Big Ten, and Bo's defenses are again exposed. But with Frank as the middleman, we don't get an Eichorst-Pelini explosion and Bo exits on good terms, moving to coach some low-tier P5 program like Vanderbilt instead of freefalling back to FCS.

Frank realizes he's got a few years left and prepares to leave Nebraska with a career just under Osborne and Devaney. We win at least one more national title during his reign and have about 4-5 conference titles between the Big XII and Big Ten. Frank works with Osborne to make an offer to UCF-King Frost as some kind of co-Head Coach or OC-in-Waiting. Frank retires gracefully after a season or two and Frost takes over.

We still run elements of the triple option, haven't burned coaching bridges, and talented guys like Milt Tenopir, Turner Gill, Boyd Epley and Ron Brown have stuck with the program for 20+ years. We hire them all on as "outside consultants" in a Saban-esque move and Frost brings in his new guys.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Click to expand...
That post was a thing of beauty, how the last 20 years could/should have been!
 
Husker In Oklahoma said:
They spelled fired with S T U P I D, twice. Even more stupid were the crap coaches hired to replace those blunders.

The move to the BIG was great for NU, academically, but for football, it’s been awful. I don’t even think that can even be argued. A century of history gone.
Click to expand...

Hiring the wrong people will always cost you more than unwisely firing someone. Even if you fire a good person, there is still the chance that you could hire an equal or an improvement. It is the hires that replaced them that were astronomically worse. The Riley hiring was worse than the Callahan hiring, in my opinion. One had never won a conference championship or been much involved in the national conversation. The other had recently coached in the Super Bowl. Plus, we were back competing for conference championships pretty quick after Callahan, since there were things he did well. Several years after Riley and we still are trying to just rebuild a roster, let alone compete for titles.
 

DuckTownHusker said:
I think the Bill Callahan experiment was really tumultuous, for more reasons that just the sudden swap to the WCO and trying to make Nebraska an "NFL style" team.

If Frank had been given a chance to continue, Pelini winds up staying as his DC. Nebraska still recruits well (maybe not Suh) but manages to put together some monster defenses under Solich and Pelini. We win at least one or two Big XII title games.

The Big XII still falls apart, because Texas 'gon Texas. Osborne and Perlman still lead us to the Big Ten, and Bo's defenses are again exposed. But with Frank as the middleman, we don't get an Eichorst-Pelini explosion and Bo exits on good terms, moving to coach some low-tier P5 program like Vanderbilt instead of freefalling back to FCS.

Frank realizes he's got a few years left and prepares to leave Nebraska with a career just under Osborne and Devaney. We win at least one more national title during his reign and have about 4-5 conference titles between the Big XII and Big Ten. Frank works with Osborne to make an offer to UCF-King Frost as some kind of co-Head Coach or OC-in-Waiting. Frank retires gracefully after a season or two and Frost takes over.

We still run elements of the triple option, haven't burned coaching bridges, and talented guys like Milt Tenopir, Turner Gill, Boyd Epley and Ron Brown have stuck with the program for 20+ years. We hire them all on as "outside consultants" in a Saban-esque move and Frost brings in his new guys.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Click to expand...
Well, no. Great spin and loved the journey

But, Frank cleaned house because he was trying to change the offense to more of a "new" zone read. He wanted to pass more because the game was changing. He wanted his people to lead the way. (recruiting might have been part, I'm not that close to the program to judge, I had to depend on southern newspapers). If I remember right, Osborne seemed a little baffled by the dismissal because they did good for him.

UN had two HOF coaches consecutively. Look at the replacements of their peers, Bear? Bowden (dumpster fire still going on there). Paterno? Woody? A fall off from those long time coaches because in my opinion they were the glue that held those programs together. Plus of course they could coach. UN had to run its course (although I think if FS would have been kept on the above thread might ring somewhat clear and true to an extent. Also, change was coming. McBride had hinted at retirement in 97 and TO asked him to stay because of his retirement.

But anyway-the glue retired after 97. I used to work out(?) at a gym that the fiance (soon wife) of a mid 90's husker starter worked out and upon seeing my dorky "Back to Back" t-shirt she would strike up Husker conversations. The year of the change I told her how excited I was for FS to coach and the program would keep going.
Her view vastly different. The boys flat out loved TO and he was the glue that held everything together and didn't think the program would continue as it had.
And FINALLY-so many people when they take over leadership of a good thing (see SP and SE) they want to put THEIR stamp on it, even if it means ruining what is there. I still think SP must have been mad at FS maybe because he had him empty the trash once... Easiest thing to do after a nice 2003 turnaround is tout the great improvement in 1 year and pump the money into recruiting and PR that the Red was back, etc, etc, etc.
Man this stuck in the house stinks. I talk too much
 
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